But O-lan was not finished with it, and she went her way silently. In the morning she heated water and presented it to old man, and to Wang Lung if he were not in the inner court she presented tea, but when Cuckoo went to find hot water for her mistress the cauldron was empty and not all her loud questionings would stir any response from O-lan. Then there was nothing but that Cuckoo must herself boil water for her mistress if she would have it. But then it was time to stir the morning gruel and there was not space in the cauldron for more water and O-lan would go steadily to her cooking, answering nothing to Cuckoo’s loud crying,
“And is my delicate lady to lie thirsting and gasping in her bed for a swallow of water in the morning?”
But O-lan would not hear her; only she pushed more grass and straw into the bowels of the oven, spreading it as carefully and as thriftily as ever she had in the old days when one leaf was precious enough because of the fire it would make under food. Then Cuckoo went complaining loudly to Wang Lung and he was angry that his love must be marred by such things and he went to O-lan to reproach her and he shouted at her,
“And cannot you add a dipperful of water to the cauldron in the mornings?”
But she answered with a sullenness deeper than ever upon her face,
“I am not slave of slaves in this house at least.”
Then he was angry beyond bearing and he seized O-lan’s shoulder and he shook her soundly and he said,
“Do not be yet more of a fool. It is not for the servant but for tbe mistress.”
And she bore his violence and she looked at him and she said simply,
“And to that one you gave my two pearls!”
Then his hand dropped and he was speechless and his anger was gone and he went away ashamed and he said to Cuckoo,
“We will build another stove and I will make another kitchen. The first wife knows nothing of the delicacies which the other one needs for her flower-like body and which you also enjoy. You shall cook what you please in it”
And so he bade the laborers build a little room and an earthen stove in it and he bought a good cauldron. And Cuckoo was pleased because he said,”You shall cook what you please in it.”
As for Wang Lung, he said to himself that at last his affairs were settled and his women at peace and he could enjoy his love. And it seemed to him freshly that he could never tire of Lotus and of the way she pouted at him with the lids drooped like lily petals over her great eyes, and at the way laughter gleamed out of her eyes when she glanced up at him.
But after all this matter of the new kitchen became a thorn in his body, for Cuckoo went to the town every day and she bought this and that of expensive foods that are imported from the southern cities. There were foods he had never even heard of: lichee nuts and dried honey dates and curious cakes of rice flour and nuts and red sugar, and horned fish from the sea and many other things. And these all cost money more than he liked to give out, but still not so much, he was sure, as Cuckoo told him, and yet he was afraid to say, “You are eating my flesh,” for fear she would be offended and angry at him, and it would displease Lotus, and so there was nothing he could do except to put his hand unwillingly to his girdle. And this was a thorn to him day after day, and because there was none to whom he could complain of it, the thorn pierced more deeply continually, and it cooled a little of the fire of love in him for Lotus.
And there was yet another small thorn that sprang from the first, and it was that his uncle’s wife, who loved good food, went often into the inner court at meal times, and she grew free there, and Wang Lung was not pleased that out of his house Lotus chose this woman for friend. The three women ate well in the inner courts, and they talked unceasingly, whispering and laughing, and there was something that Lotus liked in the wife of his uncle and the three were happy together, and this Wang Lung did not like.
But still there was nothing to be done, for when he said gently and to coax her,
“Now, Lotus, my flower, and do not waste your sweetness on an old fat hag like that one. I need it for my own heart, and she is a deceitful and untrustworthy creature, and I do not like it that she is near you from dawn to sunset.”
Lotus was fretful and she answered peevishly, pouting her lips and hanging her head away from him,
“Now and I have no one except you and I have no friends and I am used to a merry house and in yours there is no one the first wife who hates me and these children of yours who are a plague to me, and I have no one.”
Then she used her weapons against him and she would not let him into her room that night and she complained and said,
“You do not love me for if you did you would wish me to be happy.”
Then Wang Lung was humbled and anxious and he was submissive and he was sorry and he said,
“Let it be only as you wish and forever.”
Then she forgave him royally and he was afraid to rebuke her in any way for what she wished to do, and after that when he came to her Lotus, if she were talking or drinking tea or eating some sweetmeat with his uncle’s wife, would bid him wait and was careless with him, and he strode away, angry that she was unwilling for him to come in when this other woman sat there, and his love cooled a little, although he did not know it himself.
He was angry, moreover, that his uncle’s wife ate of the rich foods that he had to buy for Lotus and that she grew fat and more oily than she had been, but he could say nothing for his uncle’s wife was clever and she was courteous to him and flattered him with good words, and rose when he came into the room.
And so his love for Lotus was not whole and perfect as it had been before, absorbing utterly his mind and his body. It was pierced through and through with small angers which were the more sharp because they must be endured and because he could no longer go even to O-lan freely for speech, seeing that now their life was sundered.
Then like a field of thorns springing up from one root and spreading here and there, there was yet more to trouble Wang Lung. One day his father, whom one would say saw nothing at any time so drowsy with age he was, woke suddenly out of his sleeping in the sun and he tottered, leaning on his dragon-headed staff which Wang Lung had bought for him on his seventieth birthday, to the doorway where a curtain hung between the main room and the court where Lotus walked. Now the old man had never noticed the door before nor when the court was built and seemingly he did not know whether anyone had been added to the house or not, and Wang Lung never told him, “I have another woman,” for the old man was too deaf to make anything out of a voice if it told him something new and of which he had not thought.
But on this day he saw without reason this doorway and he went to it and drew the curtain, and it happened that it was at an hour of evening when Wang Lung walked with Lotus in the court, and they stood beside the pool and looked at the fish, but Wang Lung looked at Lotus. Then when the old man saw his son standing beside a slender painted girl he cried out in his shrill cracked voice,
“There is a harlot in the house!” and he would not be silent although Wang Lung, fearing lest Lotus grow angry—for this small creature could shriek and scream and beat her hands together if she were angered at all—went forward and led the old man away into the outer court and soothed him, saying,
“Now calm your heart, my father. It is not a harlot but a second woman in the house.”
But the old man would not be silent and whether he heard what was said or not no one knew only he shouted over and over, “There is a harlot here!” And he said suddenly, seeing Wang Lung near him, “And I had one woman and my father had one woman and we farmed the land. “And again he cried out after a time, “I say it is a harlot!”
And so the old man woke from his aged and fitful sleeping with a sort of cunning hatred against Lotus. He would go to the doorway of her court and shout suddenly into the air,